Kelly S.
Yelp
TL;DR: Expensive tiny bagels, cold wait staff, no almond milk, disappointed- but willing to try again.
As a bagel enthusiast, I was thoroughly disappointed with Solomons. To give a bit of context, Solomons has been toted as some of the best you can get in the Sacramento Valley, and I cannot say that sentiment is true.
The vibe is immaculate. You are getting a fusion of what the K street corridor was before DOCO and a historical call back to Tower Cafe and a new hipster kind of place. I love it for that reason. There is so much hidden history at this location, and I appreciate how they kept all of the parts of it to make it what it is today.
Nevertheless, one cannot survive off of vibes alone, especially when food is involved. Here is what you are getting when it comes to the food and what we ordered:
- 1 sesame bagel with Lox
- 1 Everything bagel with Lox
Nothing special to order for this round because I am of the notion that if this cannot be done well, chances of others being done well are concerningly low.
Bagles came out, and they were SMALL. Much smaller than I had expected and much smaller than you could get at the grocery store. For the two of us to go, it was about $36. Here is what, if I am going to pay $36, I expect greatness and in a larger quantity.
Finally, regarding the food, I found it SO ODD that they only carry oat milk, not almond milk. As somebody with an oat allergy, it was different to see a company carry more "uncommon" milk than the everywhere almond dairy alternative.
But for us, it isn't just about the cost of the food; we expect to pay for food when we are out and about. For me, it is more the service.
I expect that when we walk into a resto, we are treated like every other customer. I understand that others will need more assistance/attention, but I don't expect that we will be forgotten or ignored. We sat outside, and this wasn't the busiest that I had seen Solomon's since they opened, but it was the slowest I had seen. I was disappointed that there was a table that sat down after us, getting service and drink offers before us. Our waitress forgot to bring us our check, so we went up to the front to pay, and luckily somebody else was there. In the in-between, though, when we got our food, our waitress never checked on us; she dropped it off, told us they didn't have almond milk, and bounced. Even when we were leaving, she was more invested in something on the ground than her customers. In terms of the wait staff, we got a fluke because as I was watching everybody else interact with their wait staff, they were getting things quickly and with a smile.